but monsters are always hungry, darling
by solnishka
Summary: Kel is living the life of an average college student when she finds herself transported to the Witcher universe. Now beset with danger on all sides, Kel needs to find protection and find it fast. Instead, plagued with unexplained magical abilities and dogged by Destiny, she finds Lambert and his "friend" from the School of the Cat. Slow burn Lambert/Aiden/OFC.
1. A Partial Conjunction

It was snowing. Out of all the nights to be kicked out of her own dorm room at U-Albany, it had to be this one—right at the beginning of the spring semester, when it was still cold. Kelly Zadrosky, known as Kel to her friends, huffed in frustration and pulled up the hood of her coat. She _could _have stayed in Seneca House's common room, but there was a party going on there and right now Kel just wasn't in the mood. Instead, she found herself trudging through the dark campus towards Indian Pond, keeping to the sidewalks to avoid soaking her sneakers.

She fished her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans and scrolled through her contacts, pausing at her brother's number. If there was anyone who'd be awake at a quarter to midnight, it would be Daniel.

**u up?** she texted him.

**yeah y?** came the instantaneous reply. Kel grinned, glad to be right.

**roommate is having b-day sex with boyfriend. I got kicked out. Whatcha doing?**

Kel's phone lit up with an incoming call. Kel accepted it, and her older brother's voice came over the line: "hey, little sis."

"Hey, meathead," she said back, smiling into the dark.

"Oh, fuck you. How's the life of the sexiled?"

"It's fucking snowing right now, and I'm pissed about it."

Danny laughed. "So you're outside?"

"Yeah."

"Can't you, I dunno, take refuge in a coffee shop or something? I'm sure there's someplace in Albany that's still open right now."

Kel groaned. "Yeah, but I'd have to _walk_. I forgot to take the car keys from Tammy before she kicked me out for the night... I might go to the library, though."

"Cool."

Kel had reached Indian Pond. The full moon shone through a gap in the clouds, gilding the ice with silver. Kel watched the wind stir the brittle reeds at the pond's edge for a few moments, then looked up. She could see a spattering of stars, as well as a pulsating green object that was slowly but definitely moving towards the moon.

_Must be a helicopter light_, she thought.

"Hey, Danny, you never answered my question."

"Oh. Um, I'm watching the new _Witcher _series on Netflix."

"Is it good?"

"Kind of, yeah. The games are better though. You gonna watch it?"

"Probably not. I don't do that fantasy stuff — I didn't watch _Game of Thrones_ either, even though Emily keeps trying to get me into it."

"The ending for season eight sucked; Daenerys deserved better. So you and Emily are doing okay?"

Kel paused and glanced around, but she was truly alone at the pond. Overhead, the green helicopter light had moved about an inch closer to the moon and grown slightly larger.

"I… think so?" she said. "I mean, we haven't talked about, like, posting a Facebook status or anything making us official. But it feels… nice. Really nice. She gave me a necklace for my birthday."

"Do you wear it all the time?"

"...Yes."

"Aw, that's cute."

"The team asked me where I got it, and I said a friend gave it to me."

"So you're not out to them yet?"

"No. I just… I don't wanna make things awkward, you know? What if they feel uncomfortable around me in the locker room after I tell them that I'm dating a woman?"

"Are you gonna bring Emily home for spring break?"

"Maybe? I dunno. I need to talk to her about it. Do you think Mom and Dad would be okay with it?"

"I think they'll be surprised, since you've dated all boys before this, but I don't think they'll be mad at you or anything. Grandpa is a different story though—devout Polish catholic, yada yada yada…"

The snowfall had lightened, and some more of the clouds had disappeared. Kel glanced up at the sky, and saw that the green dot had grown until it was half the size of the moon and brushing against its side. Looking at it made her feel nauseous.

_That's weird_, she thought. The light bathing the pond was now greenish-silver.

"Hey, Danny, are you near a window?"

"Not really."

"Could you go to one and look at the moon for a sec? I think I see something weird."

"It's probably just a helicopter."

"Please."

"Fine, fine… _Holy shit!_ What the fuck is that?"

"I know, right? It's huge."

"It's getting bigger."

"Check the news, quick! Maybe this is an astronomical event."

"Lemme get back to my laptop…"

Up in the sky, the green dot seemed to be bleeding into the moon, tainting it. Kel stared up at it even though looking directly at the thing made her eyes water. A ringing noise began to fill her ears. She looked away briefly, and the noise ceased and her eyes returned to normal. She wiped at her face and looked up again—the green dot had grown to the size of the moon and was halfway through consuming it!

"Danny? Are you seeing this?" Kel asked. There was no reply. She glanced at her phone, and saw that the call had ended. When she tapped the screen she could only watch in horror as her battery percentage ticked quickly downwards. She tried to call her brother again, but the phone died before the call could go through.

Kel looked around. Everything was illuminated by that weird green light, and now the ringing noise infected Kel's ears even without her needing to look at its source. She started to feel sick and put a hand to her stomach. The ringing grew stronger, so that it felt like Kel's teeth were vibrating in her skull. She squinted her streaming eyes and started to run back towards Seneca House, trying to take shelter, but the ground gave a great shudder beneath her feet.

She stumbled and fell to her knees, and let out a wordless wail of horror as an alien consciousness invaded her mind. _Something _was there, something too vast and ancient for a mortal being to comprehend, and it probed through her thoughts and memories as Kel shuddered and twitched on the ground. The woman clutched her skull and retched up the contents of her stomach as the presence continued to sift through her innermost self—and then the alien presence was gone as swiftly as it had come.

Kel lay on the ground, whimpering softly with her eyes squeezed shut. Around her, in the darkness of the night, crickets and frogs chirped. A nightjar called, followed by the hooting of an owl. Slowly, Kel opened her eyes. Her first instinct was to glance skyward, and she saw that the moon had returned to normal—there was no alien green thing distorting it. But rather than being full, it was now a slender crescent. Kel took in her surroundings and saw that, rather than surrounded by the mowed lawn of the U-Albany campus along the bank of Indian Pond, she was instead lying in a meadow of tall grass at the edge of a forest.

More than that, it was hot. Kel sat up, unzipped her heavy coat, and eased it off her shoulders. The trees around her were leafed out, which meant that it wasn't winter. She stared at them with narrowed eyes, trying to understand what was going on.

"Did I just have," she whispered to herself, "a paranormal experience? Did I _time travel?_ Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit…"

With an effort of will, Kel forced herself to calm down. The first thing to do was to find civilization so she could determine when and where she was. Kel looked back up at the sky, but her attention was no longer on the moon. She stared up at the stars, trying to find the only constellation she could recognize—the Dipper, with the North Star at the end of the handle—but it wasn't there.

Kel shook her head in disappointment and glanced around at the trees surrounding the meadow. There were no wolves in New York state, but there _were _black bears—and Kel didn't want to meet any! She climbed the tallest tree she could immediately find, going as high as she could until the branches became slender wands that bowed beneath her weight, and settled down for the night. The fork she wedged herself into was uncomfortable, with a knot poking into her back, but she felt safer than she had on the ground.

After several hours of shifting around and vainly trying to get comfortable, even going so far as to ball up her coat and use it as a cushion, she fell into a shallow doze.


	2. Silver is for Monsters

So. This was… new.

Lambert lay in his bedroll with Aiden arranged on top of him, staring skyward as the rosy dawn light in the east bled into the indigo darkness above them. The other witcher was a warm weight on his chest and shoulders, one which mumbled sleepy nonsense and nosed into the crook between his neck and shoulder.

Ordinarily Lambert detested cuddlers. Go in, fuck the whore, get out—that was the way he did things. It was easier, and very few of his past bedmates had wanted to cuddle a scarred, testy witcher anyway. But Aiden had snarled and dragged him closer when Lambert had tried to move away post-fuck, and Lambert had found himself acquiesing.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

As the dawn light paled into sunlight and the night was banished into the west, Aiden twitched himself awake and yawned against Lambert's shoulder.

"Belleteyn night was good?" he asked, pressing tingling kisses against Lambert's neck. Lambert wrapped his arms around his… lover, apparently… and cupped his ass.

"Belleteyn morning will be better," he growled, and Aiden laughed.

And it was.

* * *

"It's here somewhere," Aiden muttered an hour or so later, pawing through their belongings. Everything had been scattered around their campsite on Belleteyn eve. Vesemir would be mortified at the untidiness of it all, Lambert noted, and kicked an empty bottle of Mahakaman mead aside. He found himself grinning faintly as he re-lit the fire with Igni and scavenged a few pieces of deadwood from the surrounding forest. He was… happy. He was low on coin, he needed to repair his armor, his horse had thrown a shoe, and yet… Aiden was here, and it had been a good night.

Probably one of the best Lambert had ever had.

Lambert watched Aiden rifle through his gelding's saddlebags. The other witcher was about his height, but more slender, and moved with a grace befitting his School. He had tugged on his breeches but foregone shirt and boots, and Lambert's eyes roved over the scars covering his chest and back. Before last night he would only have watched out of the corner of his eye, or had a retort ready if he'd done so openly, but now he could look as much as he liked.

"What the fuck are you looking for?" Lambert demanded.

"The notice," Aiden answered, not looking up, then: "Aha!" He pulled a scrap of parchment from the bag and brandished it, sitting down next to Lambert at the fire. Their sides were touching. Lambert moved closer and put his head up against Aiden's so he could read, but the Cat School witcher was already speaking: "'A ferocious beast, a demon of the woods, is disrupting the logging efforts of the Nilfgaardian engineering corps. Payment for proof of slaying the beast is three hundred and fifty florens. Seek Captain Gustavus Gars for details.' Sound interesting?"

Lambert shrugged. "We need the coin," he said.

"Nice enthusiasm there," Aiden said, grinning and moving away from him in order to reach for the food. The two witchers washed down a quick meal of oatcakes and jerky with water from their canteens, dressed, and saddled their horses. Aiden vaulted onto his gelding's back, clicked his tongue, and used his knees to urge the horse into a walk out of the clearing. Lambert followed on his nameless chestnut mare, content to watch the strengthening sunlight play over his lover's brown-blond hair.

_You're besotted_, he observed internally, and something resembling panic twisted in his gut. Aiden wasn't the first man Lambert had lain with, but he _was _the first witcher, and the first… friend. This had been building for almost three moons of traveling along the Path together, longer than Lambert had been with anyone other than his Wolf School brothers, and had culminated with the mead and the general air of festivity that Belleteyn brought.

And it could all come to an end in the blink of an eye, since dealing with countless agonizing, horrific deaths was part and parcel of being a witcher. Lambert's usual tactic towards facing this reality—not giving a fuck about anyone or anything—was completely useless, because he… because…

Because he was in love with Aiden, dammit. Aiden could die today, or tomorrow, or next week, or who the fuck knew when, and it was going to hurt like a bitch.

"What d'you think of that strange light last night?" Aiden asked, startling Lambert out of his thoughts.

Lambert shrugged, grateful for the distraction. "Fuck if I know what caused it."

His medallion had vibrated on its chain as the green light had briefly consumed the moon and then vanished, but nothing had come of it—no monsters had leaped out of the forest, no screams had echoed from the nearby town. Aiden had eventually dismissed it and forcefully tugged Lambert back to what they had been doing.

The two witchers continued riding. They had camped only in the outskirts of the forest, and reached the town before mid-morning. The peasants who watched them pass were bleary-eyed and hungover from the Belleteyn celebrations of the previous night, and some of the yet-unplanted fields were dotted with the ashen remains of bonfires. There was a new-looking palisade of green pine logs surrounding the collection of hovels, and the sawmill also didn't look particularly weathered.

Lambert's eyes flicked over the peasants walking along the muddy lane that passed for a main street, taking in the armored Nilfgaardians moving freely among them and occasionally ducking into various buildings—the soldiers had been quartered in the peasants' homes, then, the few rooms at the inn reserved for the commanding officers. The locals probably weren't very happy at that.

There was a small boy playing with a wooden animal figure along the side of the lane. A woman stared at the two witchers, her eyes wide with fright, then scooped the boy into her arms and fled into a hovel.

_Well fuck you too_, Lambert thought.

Up ahead was the inn, which looked prosperous; it was joined to a stable for the guests, and the yard in front of it was fenced. A quartet of guards wearing Nilfgaardian armor and bearing halberds stood in front of the gate. They eyed the approaching witchers with naked suspicion.

"State your business!" one of them demanded in a heavy accent when Lambert and Aiden drew close. He had a graying beard and a flinty expression—a veteran, then.

"We're looking for Captain Gustavus Gars. He here?" Lambert demanded.

"Are you...?" the guard demanded, then grimaced in frustration. "_Vatt'ghern_?" he said at last.

"Yes, we're witchers," Aiden answered, gently providing the word. Lambert drummed his fingers on his saddle horn.

"Witcher, witchers…" the guard murmured to himself, testing the sound of the word. Lambert would have started grinding his teeth in frustration, but the Nilfgaardian snapped something to the other guardsmen that made them draw aside from the open gate. Aiden and Lambert urged their horses through it, then dismounted and tied the reins to the provided hitching post.

A calico cat hissed at them, then scurried around a corner. A girl no older than seven with a missing front tooth peeped at the two men from around the door to the stables. She fled into the building's shadowed interior when Lambert looked at her. The bell at the local temple of Melitele tolled.

The two witchers entered the inn's common room. There were no patrons, and no innkeep stood behind the bar. The tables and benches had been rearranged so that it looked more like a military command post than a place to drink and be merry. Nilfgaardian officers were clustered together at one of the tables, poring over a map and speaking in their dialect.

"Greetings," Aiden said. The officers looked up.

The most richly armored officer, the one wearing a cape attached to his pauldrons, broke away from the group. The cape had once been red, but rain and general wear had caused the dye to run so that the wool was a splotchy pink in some places. The black lacquer covering his armor was badly scratched.

"You are the witchers?" the Nilfgaardian demanded. "You are here to slay our demon?"

"Anyone else around here got cat eyes and silver swords?" Lambert demanded. "Of course we are. You Captain Gars?"

"_I_ am Captain Gars," another Nilfgaardian at the table said. He was a small man with pox scars and a ferrety expression that made Lambert's fists itch. His black lacquered armor was too large for him and didn't have the wear and tear of the other officers', and he wore a pair of crystal spectacles.

Lambert could feel Aiden glaring a warning to him. He swallowed a sneer and said, "tell us about your 'demon of the woods.'"

"It lives in the deepest recesses of the forest, where—incidentally—the tallest and best trees are. It attacks our logging parties. We tried to drive it off by sending armed patrols alongside the loggers, but they were overwhelmed. The survivors reported trees coming to life to attack them, as well as wolves and bears that would have ordinarily avoided a large force of armed men."

"So nobody has seen it directly?" Aiden asked.

Gars shook his head. "None that have survived."

"Is there anything else?"

"If you wish to have payment, you must bring me a trophy as proof of having dealt with the beast. Your reward will be three hundred and fifty florens—"

"Yeah, that's not gonna fly," Lambert said, crossing his arms over his chest. "You'll pay us four hundred, not three fifty, and we want half in advance."

"Three seventy-five, and not a copper until I see the head of the beast."

"Three seventy-five, with one quarter in advance because we need to see to our armor before setting out."

Gars glared at him from behind his spectacles, but Lambert held firm. After several seconds the Nilfgaardian officer huffed and nodded. Lambert smirked as Gars counted out the coins and then handed them over in a small pouch.

The two witchers left the inn and gave their armor over to the local smith for repair. The town's farrier was nearby, which was fortunate for Lambert. He handed over his mare and the shoe she had thrown yesterday, not envying the man one bit. His horse—normally a dumb, placid creature devoid of personality—turned into a raging bitch when anyone tried to touch her hooves.

He sat down on a nearby bench to watch the show, and Aiden came to sit beside him. The mare pinned back her ears and swished her tail as the farrier stroked down her hock to her hoof.

"So, a leshy?" Aiden suggested.

"Maybe. Could also be a spriggan," Lambert said mildly.

The farrier barely dodged the first kick, but turned out to be smarter than Lambert had expected. He used a rope and tied the hoof he wanted to work on to an iron ring set in a post. With one leg elevated the mare was unable to lash out, and the farrier got to work. Lambert propped his chin on his fist, disappointed.

As the farrier was finishing, the girl from the inn's stable approached. She carried half a wrinkled apple from last autumn, and shoved it under the horse's nose. The mare's ears were still pinned flat against the back of her skull. She sniffed, which was probably what the girl wanted, then reared her heard back, opened her mouth wide, and—

Aiden leaped off the bench and dove across the street, dragging the girl away from the horse as the mare lunged towards her face with an open mouth. The girl dropped the apple half and, startled, began to cry in the witcher's arms. The door of a nearby hovel banged open, and a woman emerged.

"What are you doing with my daughter? Get away from her!"

"The horse—" Aiden began.

"Away! Away! Don't you dare touch her!" the woman shrieked, grabbing her daughter's arm and dragging her away. Aiden didn't resist. The girl was still crying, the farrier had paused in hammering the last nail, and several people had stopped in the street to watch.

Aiden stood up, gritted his teeth, and stiffly went to sit back down next to Lambert. Both of their ears could hear the whispers of "child-stealers" and "mutants" than rippled through the peasants as the farrier got back to work.

"Don't know why you bother," Lambert said.

"There was a child in danger."

"Yeah? So? She was about to learn a valuable lesson."

Aiden opened his mouth to reply, but stopped himself and looked aside. A man with a forked black beard, wearing pointed shoes completely unsuitable for outdoor use and a green robe, was walking purposefully towards the two witchers.

"You!" he said, gesturing with the hand not holding the hem of his robe out of the mud. "You are the witchers?"

"What's it to you?" Lambert demanded.

"I am Dafnaard the Wizard," the man announced, "and I have come to bid you a warning."

Aiden stepped on Lambert's foot to forestall him from speaking.

"Last night, as you may have noticed, there was a partial conjunction of the Spheres. It was most ominous, yes, most ominous that it happened on Belleteyn eve. Something has appeared in our world, something engulfed by a great vortex of fate which is like a whirlpool, sucking in and destroying everything surrounding it. I sense its presence in the forest—you must exercise the utmost caution there, for I fear it will consume you."

"Thanks for the warning," Aiden said, pressing harder on Lambert's foot. "We'll keep an eye out for vortexes."

"Do not mock me, witcher."

"I'm not," Aiden said, adopting a sincere expression. "Thank you," he repeated.

Dafnaard gave them a suspicious look, then turned on his heel and stalked away down the street. Aiden released Lambert's boot and stood up.

"Time to be going," he said.

"What do you have against me talking to people?" Lambert asked.

"It's your habit of making friends wherever you go. It makes me jealous."

Lambert smiled and mounted his horse, and they left the town together. They followed the ruts of the loggers' wagons down the road into the forest, and passed their abandoned campsite. They stopped here to brew some relict oil, then continued following the wagon-ruts. There were a few man-made clearings filled with stumps and cut branches, evidence of the loggers' work, and the ruts veered off the road and into the forest. Lambert and Aiden followed. The loggers had cleared a path for their wagons here, and the going was easy.

Gradually, the trees grew larger as the witchers approached the heart of the forest. The sunlight grew dimmer, filtered through many layers of branches and leaves. This was an area that had never been logged and had had minimal contact with sapient beings for thousands of years—the trees were ancient, primordial even, and gigantic. Neither man spoke.

They found the first corpses after several hours. The horses shied, and the two witchers dismounted and approached the site of carnage on foot. The bodies were several days old, wearing Nilfgaardian armor. They had been mangled by animals both pre- and post-mortem, which fit with a leshy or spriggan, but—

"Hey, come look at this," Aiden said, kneeling next to one of the corpses. He gestured, and Lambert saw that the corpse's face was had been charred, the flesh burnt away on one cheek and the bone beneath blackened. The helmet the now-corpse was wearing had melted around the site of the burn, the iron melted and twisted like liquified wax that had been left to cool and harden.

"That's not the work of a forest spirit," Lambert said, then cocked his head to the side. Footsteps, light and almost soundless, but… he turned towards the noise, drawing his steel sword.

The woman stepped out from behind a tree, raising her hands to show she was unarmed. She wore a stained brown robe and sturdy boots. There were leaves caught in her curling brown hair.

"Peace between us, witchers," she said in a clear, authoritative voice. "What has brought you here?"

"Got hired to get rid of a monster killing loggers in these woods," Lambert said before Aiden could stop him. "Know anyone good with fire magic?"

The woman smiled gently. "The only monsters in this venerable forest are those who seek to destroy it," she said. "We druids have been protecting it."

"Is that what you call it?"

"Yes." The woman looked down at the corpses, her expression pitying. "Their deaths were a necessary evil. These oaks were tall when elves still ruled the Continent; they cannot be cut down for a Nilfgaardian's whim."

Lambert shrugged. "Whatever you say, sweetheart," he said, and the druidess glared. He ignored her and sheathed his sword, turning back to Aiden. "We're done here," he said. "No monster, so no point in staying."

"You will not join our fight?" the druidess asked.

"Not even if you paid me," Lambert replied. The self-righteousness would kill him.

Lambert walked past the druidess to his horse and swung himself into the saddle. Aiden followed, but stopped to speak to the druidess.

"Burn those corpses if you can," he said, "otherwise you'll get necrophages."

The druidess shook her head. "We must leave them as a warning to the Nilfgaardians."

Aiden shrugged and mounted his horse, following Lambert. They returned to the town as dusk was falling, and made straight for the inn. Captain Gars was waiting for them in the yard.

"I see no trophy," he observed as the witchers entered through the gate.

"It's druids, not a beast," Lambert said. "They want to protect the forest. You'll either need to log just the outer edges or negotiate something with them."

"So you did not kill them?" Gars demanded.

"We're witchers, not assassins," Aiden growled.

Gars snarled something in Nilfgaardian. Lambert caught a few swears, but otherwise had no idea what he was saying.

"We _must _have those trees for the war effort," Gars said. "Go back! Kill the druids!"

"No," Lambert said. "We won't. You couldn't pay me enough to take on a druid in a forest. You want 'em dead, then kill them yourself—you'll probably need a couple half-decent mages though."

Their news delivered, the witchers turned back and rode swiftly out of the town, before Gars could shout that he wanted his florens back. They made camp for the night about a league away, behind a half-burned farmhouse that had been a partisan hideout before the Nilfgaardians had crushed the last bit of resistance in the region.

"See any vortexes of fate back there?" Lambert asked eventually, as the silence stretched out between them.

"None," Aiden admitted, cracking a small smile. "But who knows what tomorrow will bring?"


	3. Death in the Forest

**A big thank you to Vijamoon and animecraz85 for reviewing! Your feedback means a lot to me and encourages me to keep writing.**

**I must confess I'm playing fast and loose with the rules for magic in the Witcher universe. I've done my best with information from the wiki and am sure everything is explained in more detail in the books, but as of January 2020 I only have _The Last Wish_—the books are sold out everywhere right now (or else are exorbitantly expensive) because the new Netflix series is so popular.**

* * *

Kel woke up around mid-morning, feeling stiff and sore from spending all night in a tree. She was also ferociously hungry. She tossed her coat to the ground ahead of her, then climbed down from her perch and tied the coat's sleeves around her waist. She looked around.

The forest looked like… a forest. There were trees, bushes, undergrowth, fallen branches… typical forest stuff. Birds twittered, and a woodpecker drilled a tree on the other side of the meadow.

Kel tried to think of what to do.

Her father had once told her that moss always grew on the north side of a tree. Unfortunately, when Kel checked, she realized that moss also grew on all the other sides too. She walked to the other side of the meadow, and the woodpecker flew away. Unable to think of anything else to do, Kel wandered into the forest. Maybe she would stumble upon a road, or a park ranger (was this place even in a national park?), or someone's house.

Instead, after about an hour of ducking around branches, avoiding bramble patches, and slowly making her way in no particular direction, she found a stream.

Kel heard the noise of moving water before she saw it, and followed the sound until she found a narrow trickle of water edging around rocks in a deep bed. She eased her way down the bank, her sneakers squelching in the mud, and crouched at the stream's edge. She hesitated, thinking of all the diseases unpurified water might carry, but her stomach was twisted into painful knots of hunger. Kel cupped her hands and drank. The water was cold enough to make her teeth hurt and utterly refreshing.

_Follow the stream_, she thought. _Streams become rivers, and rivers mean civilization in the eastern United States_.

She kept walking, now sticking to the edge of the stream. The sun, which she could glimpse through gaps in the trees, reached its zenith—noon, then. Kel frequently stopped for handfuls of water, which would temporarily quiet the hunger pangs that twisted in her gut. She still felt empty, though, and thought wistfully of the ramen packets sitting in the cupboard in her dorm room.

The light was beginning to dim and turn ruddy as the afternoon slid into evening, and Kel still hadn't glimpsed or heard so much as a whisper of another human being. The stream meandered through the forest, its burbling and the chatter of unseen birds the only sounds Kel could hear. Eventually, the stream's channel turned on itself, forming a narrow U-shape before continuing. At the deepest part of the U an ancient, spreading willow grew, its roots protruding through the bank and dipping into the current. Its drooping branches formed a hollow where a carpet of white trilliums blossomed. Kel paused here, charmed, and ducked beneath the branches. She smiled at the flowers, for a moment forgetting her hunger and how lost she was.

A twig snapped.

Kel looked up, and saw peeking at her from around the tree a… thing. It was hairless, bipedal, and about the size of a five-year-old child, but clearly wasn't human. Pointed ears stuck out from the sides of its bald head, and massive flaps of skin dangled from beneath its chin. It was pale overall, but had red hands and feet, and from its fingers curled massive, dirty yellow claws.

"Uh… hello," Kel said.

The thing looked at her with glittering red eyes, curling and uncurling its claws.

"Can you talk?" Kel asked.

The thing smiled, revealing a mouthful of rotting but very pointy teeth. Kel backed away. The thing came out from behind the tree and advanced towards her. Another, identical to the first, climbed down from the willow's branches, which Kel could now see were scored with claw-marks.

"I think I'm going to go," Kel said, backing out from under the willow's drooping wands.

The first creature gave a shrill cry and dashed towards her, claws outstretched. Kel turned and ran, jumping the stream in one flying leap. The creature, with its shorter legs, had to splash through the water and then scramble up the opposite bank after her, giving the woman a precious few seconds headstart.

Another of the creatures, however, jumped up from a hole in the ground ahead of her. Kel veered around it, but it leaped at her. She instinctively raised her arms to shield her face as the creature slashed at her with its claws, pushing it away so that it tumbled into a bramble, and kept running. Shrill cackles filled the forest around her as more of the creatures took up the chase.

But running was something Kel was good at—she had been on the track team at U-Albany and ran five miles every morning to keep in shape. She ran like she had never run before, dodging between trees and thickets, leaping over roots and stones. Gradually, the cackles faded behind her. Kel kept running, measuring her breath, the familiar burn starting in her lungs and legs. It was almost calming.

Her arms felt cold, though. Kel looked down at them and almost crashed into a tree. Blood! So much blood! It ran down her arms from several deep gashes, dripping onto her jacket and the thighs of her jeans. Kel came to a stop and, panting, stared down at her arms. The pain came to her then, bright and burning, and she clutched at the wounds with her hands. The creature that had jumped on her must have slashed her—she had just been too panicked to realize she was hurt.

Something rustled behind her, and Kel bolted like a startled deer. She ran until the light began to fade and the dusk deepen into nightfall, until it was too dark for her to keep going. The flow of blood from the cuts had slowed to a sluggish ooze by that time. The substance covered her arms, wrists, and hands, dark and glistening in the dying light. Kel felt weaker than ever and dizzy from blood loss. She stopped at the base of a tree and pulled her shirt over her head with trembling hands, ripping off the sleeves and using the strips of cloth as bandages, then climbed as high as she could.

Would those things follow her trail through the night? Would they find her? Kel had seen one in the willow tree; they could climb. Her perch wasn't safe—but there was nowhere else to go. In spite of her exhaustion she was too terrified to sleep. Kel spent the night staring into the darkness and clutching her wounds, flinching at every sound.

The morning found her bleary-eyed and aching. The gashes on her arms hurt when she moved them or used her hands, though they had stopped bleeding. Her stomach was a tight, painful ball of hunger, and climbing down from the tree made her feel dizzy and sick. She had lost the stream, which had been her water source as well as her plan for finding civilization, and didn't know what to do.

_I could die here, in this forest_, Kel thought. _Maybe not today, but if I don't find food or water by tomorrow_…

The thought made her shiver. Kel stared into space for several minutes, ruminating on the possibility of her own death, then forcefully shook herself. She wasn't dead yet! She could still walk and move around, still think, still make a plan—there was hope. Yes, she could die today, but she could also find a cabin with a telephone and call out a rescue service, too—either possibility could come to pass.

Kel resumed her wandering through the woods, slowly depleting her already shallow energy reserves. If those creatures found her again, she could run—but it would be a mad, desperate sprint, one she couldn't sustain for long. All of the forest looked the same, and she wondered if she was going in circles. She was cautious now, and kept alert for strange sounds that might signal danger.

Just before noon, she found a clearing. It wasn't the meadow Kel had found herself in at the start of this cursed venture, which was a relief. This one was dotted with blackberry brambles, their canes drooping with hard, unripe fruit. Kel looked at them in disappointment. She sank into a sitting position in the center of the clearing to take a rest, and happened to glance to her side.

There, nestled among the leaves of some groundcover plant, was something small and red: a wild strawberry. Kel hesitated, wondering if wild strawberries were edible, but her stomach gave a painful twist. She resolved to eat a single berry, wait an hour, and if there were no ill effects then she could continue eating them. On a stomach that had had nothing but the occasional handful of water for a day, and then half a day of nothing at all, the berry was sweeter than any other fruit Kel could remember tasting. She ate it in several tiny bites, trying to make it last, but it was still gone too soon.

Kel scoured the ground of the clearing, plucking strawberries as she found them and stuffing them into the pockets of her coat. She didn't know if the single berry would make her sick or not, but she desperately wanted them to be edible. Slowly, the sun moved across the sky, and gray clouds began to mass in the north. When Kel guessed that an hour had passed and her stomach felt the same, she wolfed down the strawberries she had gathered and licked the juice from her fingers. The temperature had dropped somewhat, and she pulled her coat around her shoulders.

Kel looked around the clearing, not wanting to leave, but there was no longer anything here for her. Her heart leaped into her throat when she found a narrow path leading away from the clearing. It was just a dirt track that curved through the woods, barely wide enough for one person, but still—a path! Paths meant people! She followed it eagerly as the first raindrops began to fall, pulling her hood over her hair.

The path meandered for several hours, twisting and turning, and ended at a ramshackle cabin. Kel stopped and stared.

It looked like a cottage out of a storybook. The thatched roof was covered with a layer of moss, and a stubby, crooked chimney protruded from the center. The walls were made of logs. There was a door with a wooden latch, and off to one side was a stone well. Against one of the walls was a logpile, with a stump into which a gleaming steel axe had been embedded. The axe wasn't rusty—it hadn't been there long, then. Kel felt hopeful as she approached the door and knocked.

There was no answer.

"Hello?" Kel called, and waited.

Still, nothing.

Kel debated waiting outside, but the rain was now a serious downpour. She could feel is slowly but steadily soaking through her coat, and made a decision.

She lifted the latch and stepped inside the cabin, preparing an explanation and apology for intruding, but immediately felt that it was empty of people. It was a single, windowless room, and Kel had to stand in the doorway and wait several minutes for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. There was a stone hearth in the center of the room, filled with ashes and half-burned logs, and off to one side was a cot heaped with blankets. There was a rickety-looking chair, lots of boxes and baskets and shelves, and that was it.

No lamps. No telephone. Nothing electrical. Had Kel stumbled upon the hideout of some crazy off-grid survivalist? Her excitement and hope turned to fear as she imagined all the things that a crazy man could do to her alone in the woods, but she forcibly squashed those thoughts—not all people were bad. She had been afraid she would die this morning, and had found the strawberries and a cabin where someone lived. There was always hope.

Kel decided to wait until whoever lived here returned home. She looked at the hearth, debating whether to light it, and rifled through several of the boxes and baskets looking for a lighter. There wasn't one. Instead, at the edge of the hearth she found a chunk of dark gray stone, a piece of metal, and a little pouch of wood shavings. Kel stared at them.

_Flint and steel_, she realized, _and the shavings are tinder_. She had only seen these things in movies. You were supposed to bang the rock and the metal together to make sparks, and the sparks would catch onto the tinder and make flames that would transfer to the bigger logs. Kel tried it, but couldn't produce any sparks. Eventually, she gave up with a huff of frustration and closed the door, cutting off her light. She felt her way to a wall and sat down, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering a little. The rain drummed against the roof and dripped through the chimney. Kel closed her eyes in the dark. The floor of the cabin was a lot more comfortable than the branches of a tree, and she drifted off, feeling safer than she had before.

She woke up when she heard the door opening.

Kel stiffened. A humanoid figure a little shorter than herself walked in, its feet making a weird hard sound against the floor—heavy boots, Kel guessed. There was something wrong with its legs, and pointy horns rose from its head. Kel squeaked in fright and shifted further into the shadows.

"Merciful Melitele!" the figure yelped when she moved, dropping the basket it was carrying. Green plants spilled across the floor. Kel shrieked and jumped up, backing into a corner.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my house?" the horned figure demanded. Its voice was feminine.

"I—I—" Kel stuttered, staring at the horns.

"Speak!" the thing commanded.

"My name is Kel," Kel said in a small voice, "and I am very, very lost. I found this place by accident. I'm sorry for breaking in, but it was raining and I was cold."

"Hmph," the figure said, crossing its arms over its chest. "Well, I can't fault you for that, I guess; I would've done the same."

It moved to the hearth and took up the flint and steel, scraping the rock and metal together in a quick striking motion. Sparks showered the tinder, and a small flame emerged. The figure crouched over it, blowing gently on the flame, and gradually the fire devoured the tinder and moved onto one of the logs. The figure straightened up with a sigh and looked directly at Kel.

The figure had the lower body of a goat, with split hooves, crooked legs, and a tufted tail. Its torso was that of a human woman, with bare breasts and long arms. Its hands didn't have claws like the creatures had, and its—_her_ face was normal. Her eyes were yellow, though, with a sideways slit pupil like a goat's.

"You look awful," the figure said. "What happened to you?"

"There were these creatures by the stream. They looked like, like _evil hobbits_ but with claws and these awful teeth—there were a lot of them. They chased me, and one of them slashed me."

"Let me guess—naked, big dewlaps, about yea big?" the figure asked, holding her hand out at about the height of a five-year-old child. Kel nodded.

"They're called nekkers," the figure said. "You were lucky to escape. Let me see your wounds."

Kel slowly approached and held out her arms. The figure bent over and sniffed them, then drew back. "Infected," she pronounced, "but it's not strong yet. I'll take you to the druids tomorrow—crazy people, but they know how to heal better than I do."

"Couldn't we just go to a hospital?" Kel asked.

The figure snorted. "Hospitals are only in human cities, and they're just as likely to kill you as cure you. The druids are more reliable."

"Alright," Kel said weakly. "What, um… what are you?"

"A sylvan, of course. What did you think I was?"

"I don't know. I've just never seen a person with horns before."

"Fair enough. My name's Blytha."

"Have you always lived here?" Kel asked.

"Not always. I've wandered around, seen a good bit of the world… it's all humans nowadays, or at least mostly humans. I would've liked to have been alive when the elves were still in charge of things—humans don't like sylvans, see, and call us devils, whereas elves just see us as different-shaped people. I drove the hunters out of this cabin about five years ago, though, been living here ever since."

"Where is this place?"

"Well…" Blytha cocked her head to the side and thought for a moment. "We're technically in the human realm of Kerack, close to the border of Brokilon. The humans don't have a name for this forest, but the elves who used to live here called it Caed Canellna, which means—"

"Forest of the Oak Trees," Kel said.

"You know the Elder Speech?" Blytha asked.

"The _what_?"

"The Elder Speech! The language of the elves, from before the Conjunction of the Spheres and the arrival of humans. Where'd you learn it?"

"We're not… speaking… English?" Kel asked, this time actually paying attention to the syllables coming out of her mouth. To her horror, she realized that she wasn't. The words she was saying and hearing made perfect sense to her, but their sound was completely alien.

Blytha took in the human's moment of panic, watching intently. "What was that?" she demanded after listening to Kel stutter out some gibberish sentences.

"English!" Kel said. "My native language! It's _hard_ now though; I have to concentrate to be able to speak it."

"I've never heard of English."

"Well, I've never heard of Kerack, or Brokilon, or Caed Canellna. And if someone told me a few days ago about nekkers or sylvans I would've said they were made-up fairytale monsters. But I've _seen_ them. They're _real_," Kel said, looking down at the bloodied bandages covering the gashes on her arms and then up at Blytha. Nekkers and sylvans were indisputably real.

"I think I'm _very_ far from home," Kel said softly.

Blytha scratched her ear. "We'll go to the druids tomorrow," she repeated. "The druids will know what to do."

* * *

Kel slept in Blytha's cabin that night, after a meal of greens and some bread that the sylvan had stolen from a nearby town. She slept on the floor, since Blytha had no interest in offering her cot to a guest, but didn't mind—the floor was still worlds better than dozing in a tree.

In the morning, the rain had stopped, and they set out through the forest. They walked for hours, with Blytha carrying a gathering basket and pointing out which plants were and were not edible, which could be used for healing, and which were just nice to look at: "Willow bark is a decent painkiller, comfrey helps heal wounds, marigold is an antiseptic—there's wild garlic, I'm going to cook that up with some morels—that's a bearded iris, it's pretty but will make you empty your bowels faster than anything…"

Slowly, they progressed towards the heart of the forest, until they reached what had once been, as Blytha explained, a dryad settlement. Kel gaped as she saw the buildings. The massive trees (bigger than any she had seen before in her life) had not been cut or damaged, but _something_ had caused their trunks to hollow into human-sized chambers with gently curving walls.

"The tree-women are long gone," Blytha said, looking around with sadness rather than awe. "They fled to Brokilon when the humans came with their saws and axes, and took their magic with them. This forest is going to die soon, even with the druids' protection. I can feel it."

"What do we do now?" Kel asked.

"We wait," Blytha answered, trooping into one of the hollow trees. There were recent signs of habitation: bedrolls had been spread out on the earthen floor, along with packs and bags. Kel settled down in a corner, and Blytha started talking about the coming of humans to the Continent (since that was, apparently, what this world called its central large landmass), and how the humans had disrupted the natural order of a world that already had elves and dwarves and dryads and sylvans.

"And monsters," Blytha said. "You've met nekkers, but there are a lot more—bigger, too, and fiercer."

"Dragons?" Kel asked.

"Yep."

"Uh… werewolves? Vampires?"

"Common as muck."

"Unicorns?"

"Oh, _those_ are extinct, but we used to have 'em."

Kel would have gone on, but a person ducked into the tree-chamber. It was a man with a scraggly brown beard and a wild mane of brown hair, wearing a stained brown robe.

"Ah, Blytha," he said. "Good to see you. And who is this?"

"I'm Kel," Kel said. "It's nice to meet you."

Blytha stood up. "Kel got lost in the woods," she said, "and found a nekker nest. Look at her arms!"

The man approached Kel. "We'll help you," he said, "but now that you know the way to our camp we can't let you leave until the Nilfgaardians are gone or destroyed."

"What's a Nilfgaardian?" Kel asked.

The man gave her a puzzled look. "Nilfgaard is an empire that wishes to conquer the northern realms. Its soldiers and engineers want to cut down Caed Canellna's heart to make siege engines. So far, we have held them back."

"I'm… I'm not a Nilfgaardian," Kel said.

"That may very well be, but we can't risk it. But don't fear! We won't treat you harshly. Doreann is more talented at healing than I am; I'll take you to her. My name is Morholt, by the way."

Morholt led the way out of the tree-chamber. He wended his way among the trunks, with Kel following, and then ducked into a different tree-chamber. A woman with curly brown hair was kneeling on the floor inside, peering into a heavy earthenware bowl of black liquid. She held up a hand to forestall them from speaking and frowned into the depths of the bowl. After several minutes she looked up at them.

"All I see are flames," she said to Morholt.

"That doesn't bode well. I'll tell the others not to use fire against the Black Ones anymore, and not to light any cookfires either. Doreann, meet Kel." After a quick introduction and explanation Morholt left the two women alone.

"Can I see your arms?" Doreann asked.

Kel knelt on the floor beside her and held out her arms, and flinched as the druidess unwrapped the makeshift bandages. The blood had dried and crusted to them as the wounds had stopped bleeding, and now with that crust ripped away they began to bleed anew. Doreann washed the wounds clean with water in which yarrow leaves had been steeped, which made Kel whimper through gritted teeth, then took Kel's hand in hers. She closed her eyes.

Instantly, Kel's wounds began to burn as though they'd been set on fire. Kel yelled and pulled away.

"What were you doing?" Kel demanded.

"I was healing you," Doreann snapped. She held out her hand. "Stop acting like a child and let me work."

Kel narrowed her eyes. "You touched my hand, and my cuts burned," she accused.

"Yes, that's healing magic. Accelerating the body's natural processes is painful—but effective. I can either use magic and reduce those wounds to old scars in minutes, or I can sew them shut and put a compress on them like a common hedge-witch so that they take six weeks to seal themselves. Which do you want?

"…Magic doesn't exist," Kel said.

"Of course it exists! Why are you babbling such nonsense? Watch!" Doreann snapped her fingers towards her bowl, and the black liquid instantly solidified into pitch-black ice. Kel gasped. Doreann snapped her fingers again, and it melted.

"That—that was—" Kel stammered.

"Magic," the druidess said. "Now give me your hand."

Hesitantly, Kel put her hand in the druidess'. Once more, Doreann closed her eyes. This time, Kel was ready for the burning sensation and gritted her teeth against the scream rising in her throat. At first she closed her eyes, but after the first minute passed she gave in and opened them. She watched, amazed, as the torn tissue in her arms regenerated, knitting itself together into solid flesh and then covering itself with scar tissue.

Finally, Doreann released Kel's hand. There was a faint sheen of sweat on the druidess' face, and of Kel's gashes nothing was left except for a few thin, pale lines. Old scars, just as she'd promised. Kel flexed her fingers and twisted her arms, painlessly experiencing the full range of motion.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're quite welcome," Doreann said.

"Is there any chance I could learn how to do that?" Kel asked.

"It… depends," the druidess said. "Has anything odd or unnatural ever happened to you in a time of stress? Something you couldn't explain?"

"No."

"Then you probably aren't a Source of magic, I'm afraid. It's something you're born with, not something you can learn." Doreann took in Kel's disappointed expression and sighed. "Look, most untrained Sources your age would be dribbling prophecies in between uncontrollable elemental outbursts as their magic consumed their minds. It's dangerous, and you've probably got enough on your plate already without having to worry about that. How did you lose yourself in Caed Canellna? Where is your family?"

"It's kind of a long story…" Kel said, and explained what had happened to her the night she had seen the green light. Doreann listened attentively, nodding from time to time.

"We saw a green light too, on Belleteyn eve during a partial Conjunction—that's when some of the stars and planets align in the sky. Humans came to this world during a complete conjunction over a thousand years ago. But partial conjunctions have happened before, and eclipses, and aside from some prophecies about the world ending nothing much has come of them. It's almost supper; why don't you eat with us?"

Kel followed Doreann out of the tree-chamber and to a central clearing. There were three more druids besides Doreann and Morholt, and Blytha had joined them. They ate salads of wild greens gathered from the forest as one of the druids, Rusan, told how he had frightened away a Nilfgaardian logging expedition.

"You should have killed them," Ban, another druid, said.

Morholt shook his head. "Unnecessary death," he said. "The Nilfgaardians are not inherently evil, even if they seek to destroy the forest. Simply convincing them that Caed Canellna is too much trouble to be worth the timber is enough."

"They won't be convinced," Ban growled. "Now that we've wounded their pride by defying them, they won't rest until they or the forest is no more. We need to _strike back_, not just react defensively! We know the town where their commander shelters, surely we can—"

"Let's not argue in front of our guests," Morholt said sharply, and Ban fell silent. Tension enveloped the rest of the meal, and though Kel ate hungrily she was also glad to retire for the evening. She followed Doreann back to the tree-chamber, since the druidess had apparently elected to sleep separately from her male companions. She offered Kel a bedroll.

"Do you mind if I make some light?" Doreann asked.

Kel shrugged, and Doreann muttered something. A ball of white light appeared and hovered over the druidess' shoulder. She pulled a needle and thread out of a pouch at her belt and then took off her robe, revealing a breastband and loincloth. She sat cross-legged on her own bedroll and began to stitch something along the hem of the robe.

"What are you doing?" Kel asked.

"Embroidering a fire-retardant charm into my clothes. I'm worried about what I saw in the water."

"You mean the flames you told Morholt about?"

"Yes."

"How did you see them?"

"It's called hydromancy," Doreann said without looking up. "It's… um, trying to decipher the future through channeling the properties of water. It's possible to use the other elements too, but they either require too much Power, like geomancy, or else are unreliable, like pyromancy and aeromancy. My specialty has always been water-based elemental magic, with healing as a close second."

"So witches and wizards have specialties?"

"...We here are druids, not witches and wizards, and most sorceresses don't like being referred to as witches. But you're right, otherwise. Most mages—that's the general term for trained Sources—have an element they feel especially connected to. Any half-decent mage can use all of them, of course. Now please stop bothering me; I'm trying to concentrate."

There were a thousand other questions bubbling up behind Kel's lips, but she swallowed them. She watched Doreann sew for a little while, but it looked like regular sewing—nothing spectacular happened. Kel eventually curled up in the provided bedroll with her back to the light and closed her eyes. She felt utterly safe in the company of the druids; the nekkers by the willow seemed worlds away. She drifted off contented and with a full stomach.

And woke several hours later, to the sound of stealthy footsteps.

It was dark; Doreann's light had vanished, and dawn was still several hours away. There was the faint sound of booted feet gliding over the tree-chamber's earthen floor. Kel sat up.

"Doreann?" she asked. "Is something—"

A hand descended over her mouth, and she felt something press against her throat. Kel bit down on the gloved fingers, causing their owner to curse in a male voice, and slammed her head back against her attacker. More cursing. She felt a sudden burning sensation against her throat and turned on her attacker, throwing herself in the direction she thought he had gone in. Someone tackled her and held her down against the ground, their onion-reeking breath hot against her ear.

"What are you doing? What do you want?" Kel grunted, wriggling like an eel against the dirt.

"You speak Nilfgaardian?" the man on top of her demanded.

"Apparently," Kel huffed. The person got off of her and allowed her to get up, but immediately grabbed her arms and held them.

"Let go of me!" Kel said.

"Shut up and walk out," a different person, a man, replied. There was more than one of them; the odds weren't good, and even if she managed to get away Kel didn't want to be wandering the woods at night. Kel reluctantly obeyed, exiting the tree-chamber and moving into the central clearing of the grove. Dark, humanoid shapes whose armor gleamed in the moonlight moved about.

"Gars said no prisoners," one of the shapes said, drawing near.

"But she speaks our tongue perfectly," the man holding her said. "Surely she can't be one of them."

"Who gives a shit? Cut her throat already or I'll—"

The speaker didn't have a chance to finish. A crackling ball of lightning exploded out of one of the tree-chambers, followed by Ban and Morholt shouting. The earth trembled beneath their feet and the man holding Kel cursed again, this time with an edge of fear in his voice.

"Bloody _fucking_ shit, we didn't get them all," he said.

"Where's the fucking wizard?" another demanded.

"**DRUIDS OF CAED CANELLNA**," an inhuman voice bellowed. A glowing mist, blacker than the blackest night but somehow visible, swirled about the clearing and took shape into a giant mask. Green light shone from the eye holes. The mouth moved, and more words poured into the air: "**SURRENDER NOW TO DAFNAARD THE MIGHTY OR BE DESTROYED**."

"We will never surrender the grove!" Ban screamed. "Never! You hear me, you bastard?" He raised his arms, and ribbons of white light streamed from his fingertips. They wrapped themselves around the mask and squeezed until the mask burst into nothingness with a crash that made Kel's ears ring.

Behind her, something roared. Kel looked towards the noise and screamed as an enormous bear ran towards her and the men from the shadows between the trees. The man let go of her and drew a sword from the scabbard at his hip, and his comrades hefting spears and halberds held the beast at bay.

Kel turned and screamed again as a wolf ran up to her, its teeth bared in a snarl of rage, its eyes gleaming a savage gold. The wolf, however, ignored Kel and threw itself upon one of the armored men, its jaws closing around his throat and cutting off his cry for help. More wolves passed Kel, and the woman retreated to the tree-chamber.

She backed into it and tripped over something in the shadows, falling on her backside. Kel looked, and from the moonlight streaming in through the doorway saw that it was Doreann. The druidess' eyes stared sightlessly towards the ceiling of the tree-chamber, her lips parted in the start of either a scream or an incantation. Her hacked-open throat was black with drying blood.

Kel stared at the body of the woman who had healed her gashes and patiently answered her questions. There was shouting and flashes of light from outside, and the ground shook again. She knelt next to Doreann's body and closed the druidess' eyes with a trembling hand, blinking back the tears that were threatening to well up at the corners of her own eyes.

There was a mighty explosion, and a light flared as brightly as the sun—and then went out. Darkness returned to Caed Canellna, and there were a few moments of relieved silence.

"Alright," someone said in that Nilfgaardian language, "that was the last of them. Where's the woman?"

"In here," someone else said, walking into the tree-chamber. Kel backed away to the far wall. The armored man was holding a torch in one hand and a sword in the other, and there was blood splattered across his face. Kel wondered if it was Doreann's or Morholt's.

"Come here," the man ordered.

Kel remained where she was. The tree-chamber had no windows and only one door, which the man was standing in; there was no escape.

The man sighed. "You can walk out, or I can drag you out by your hair—which do you want, girl?"

"I'll walk," Kel said in a small voice, and hesitantly started forward. The armored man stepped aside and gave her a mock-bow as she came through the doorway. More men were moving around the clearing, carrying weapons and torches and wearing identical suits of black armor. Kel decided they must be soldiers.

"Are you Nilfgaardian?" the one who had cornered her asked.

"No," Kel answered. "Please, I'm just a—a traveler. I was separated from my family and got lost in this forest. The druids were kind to me, but I'm not one of them. I'm—"

"I don't give a fuck about any of that," the soldier interrupted, hefting his sword. "The boys only spared you because you could speak our language, but since you're not—"

"Hold, I beg you, hold!" someone said, jogging up to Kel and the soldier. This man was not a soldier, or at least was a very odd-looking one. He sported a forked black beard and a green robe, and was wearing pointed green slippers on his feet.

"You!" the man said, pointing at Kel. "_You_ are the source of the vortex of fate that came to Caed Canellna on Belleteyn eve! I sensed your arrival! I, Dafnaard the Wizard, saw the conjunction. Don't you dare harm a single hair on the head of this woman," he said, directing the last bit towards the soldier, "yet. I must study her. We will take her back to the town, and from there I must ready my equipment for vivisection. We must see if she is mutated or has anatomical irregularities like the girls who were cursed under the Black Sun—oof!"

Kel punched him low in the gut. It was a hard punch and hurt her hand, but the wizard doubled over in pain. Kel turned and ran for the trees, hearing the soldiers shouting behind her. Someone tackled her to the ground. Kel twisted and fought, scratching at her attacker's face with her nails. Her thumb found her attacker's eye, and she instinctively pressed into it. She felt something soft and wet burst under the pressure of her finger, and the man on top of her screamed like a banshee.

"My eye! My eye! The bitch got my fuckin' _eye_!" he wailed.

Kel dragged herself out from underneath her attacker, who now clutched at his face, but the momentary fight had given the other soldiers enough time to surround her. They grabbed her arms and dragged her back to Dafnaard.

"She doesn't need both hands, does she?" one of the soldiers asked.

"Not at all," Dafnaard growled, holding a hand to his midsection. "Feel free to relieve her of one—or both. I don't care. Just so long as she doesn't bleed out before reaching my workshop."

"Ah, that's what tourniquets are for," the soldier said. "We'll manage."

Kel was thrown on the ground and several soldiers knelt on her arms and legs. She thrashed, but it was useless. Another soldier approached with a two-handed axe. Kel looked at the axe, then at the way her hands lay exposed in the dirt, and started to scream and thrash harder than ever. The soldiers laughed and jeered—and then cursed.

"I'm burning! I'm burning!" one wailed, jumping off of Kel and clutching at where his shin-guards had made contact with Kel's body. The metal armor was starting to glow with heat and soften in the patches where he had touched Kel. More soldiers did the same thing, until Kel was free. She looked at Dafnaard, but the wizard seemed perplexed. Her clothes started to smolder where they touched her skin, and then her coat burst into flames. Kel shrieked and hastily pulled it off, followed by the rest of her clothes.

Everywhere Kel touched, even the soles of her now-bare feet against the earth, smoldered with immense heat for several seconds and then erupted in flames. A branch that brushed her shoulder caught fire, as did the canes of a bramble bush that left a scratch along her knee. The grass under her feet smoked and turned to ash. Kel fled through the darkened forest, sowing its destruction with each step she took.

Caed Canellna burned.


End file.
